Delayed Charging mode.

Had another charging error last night. The car was at 37%, plugged it in at 4:30 p.m. with charging time set for 12 AM-5 AM, 5AM departure time with no conditioning. Somewhere around 10:15 PM it zonked with Drivetrain: Stop carefully on the display in red. Why on earth does it wait six hours to error?

I unplug it and plug it back in. The battery fans started whirring and such - which should be unnecessary since it had another 90 min. until charging should start.

Tonight I will modify the charging times to see if it always happens two hours prior to go time. I was awake and in the garage at 5am...it was still charging - was at 99%, finished at 5:06am. I find it strange that on a level two charger it could take over five hours to charge the last 60% though it has been hot, probably ~80 degrees in the garage.

ericblz said:

Had another charging error last night. The car was at 37%, plugged it in at 4:30 p.m. with charging time set for 12 AM-5 AM, 5AM departure time with no conditioning. Somewhere around 10:15 PM it zonked with Drivetrain: Stop carefully on the display in red. Why on earth does it wait six hours to error?

I unplug it and plug it back in. The battery fans started whirring and such - which should be unnecessary since it had another 90 min. until charging should start.

Tonight I will modify the charging times to see if it always happens two hours prior to go time. I was awake and in the garage at 5am...it was still charging - was at 99%, finished at 5:06am. I find it strange that on a level two charger it could take over five hours to charge the last 60% though it has been hot, probably ~80 degrees in the garage.

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Hi there.. i have noticed at 2 hours before the due charge period (1 am to 8am) the car seems to take a peek at the charger.. ie I hear the relay in my polar charger clunk on... then off... always happens...

noakey said:

Hi there.. i have noticed at 2 hours before the due charge period (1 am to 8am) the car seems to take a peek at the charger.. ie I hear the relay in my polar charger clunk on... then off... always happens...

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Same here, my charging is set to start at 1am and a lot of my 'charging interrupted' error notifications get sent at 11pm (the screeny I posted on page 2 is exactly this).

I wonder if the car turns off the EVSE to sense the voltage levels without the charging circuits trying to top the batteries up? If they weren't fully charged, the voltage might drop (maybe more) if they could still take some current. It could measure the voltage drop, then decide if it would benefit from further charging. This is just speculation, but consider, to charge the batteries, you need a higher voltage than they will sustain to 'force' the current into them, and as that difference in what they'll hold verses what they may read while charging will differ. That may be a second way to verify their ultimate state verses trying to measure the actual current going in and stopping when that gets low...easier to measure voltage than current accurately.

I was thinking the fault came up more often when the charge was below 40%, but now am starting to wonder if it has something to do with the temperature of the main battery or other component causing the charging fault. I have received the error prior to charging each night lately and it has been very warm in our detached garage. Does this correspond with anyone else's findings?

Also, I plugged in at 5 PM yesterday. Around 5:30 p.m. the battery conditioning fans kicked on, rattling away. As the charging should not start until midnight, I am wondering why it would bother? All I could think of was that cooling the battery might retain more charge and they don't consider the cost of drawing from the charger? We get hammered at $.49/KWh at peak (before 6pm) vs. $.16 after midnight. I think it was just the fans going, don't know the power draw to see if it was trying to charge also.

Just an update... after a rash of aborted charging sessions in the middle of the night, I haven't had a problem in over a week. No idea why... same charge settings, roughly the same temperature.

ericblz said:

I was thinking the fault came up more often when the charge was below 40%, but now am starting to wonder if it has something to do with the temperature of the main battery or other component causing the charging fault. I have received the error prior to charging each night lately and it has been very warm in our detached garage. Does this correspond with anyone else's findings?

Also, I plugged in at 5 PM yesterday. Around 5:30 p.m. the battery conditioning fans kicked on, rattling away. As the charging should not start until midnight, I am wondering why it would bother? All I could think of was that cooling the battery might retain more charge and they don't consider the cost of drawing from the charger? We get hammered at $.49/KWh at peak (before 6pm) vs. $.16 after midnight. I think it was just the fans going, don't know the power draw to see if it was trying to charge also.

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Sounds like something is wrong in there somewhere. .. i can hardly hear the fans when charging and the off peak charging has been reliable since the new KLE with de-tuned charge rate... i think your i3 needs a trip to the car doctor. ..

Some may scoff but this actually works.

I first examined the Intermatic T104 on Amazon for $47. It actually has more terminals than shown, so it really can do 2 phase power. I then called ClipperCreek - who are great. Real humans to talk to. Chatted with a technician there who said there should be no problem having the power cut/restore. Had my electrician hook it all up by simply replacing the junction box. We did the smoke test by manually turning it on. Started charging just fine.

Manually shutting off gave the charging error on the car. To be expected I suppose and probably something I wouldn't want to do often. Perhaps that is a clue to the early error on delayed charging?

I now have it kick on at midnight, off at 5 AM and all worked great last night. I set the departure time (no pre-condition) to 5 AM to make sure it charges fully. No errors, and 100% charged this AM. No more running outside at 10 PM for me.

Note- we needed some terminal ring adapters since my 6 gauge was far too large to fit under the screws.

I've had the same issues as all of you who had posted on this topic. Have any of you had any luck with BMW actually troubleshooting this problem? I'd like to NOT have to set my freagin' alarm at 12:15 in the morning just to check to see if my car is charged!

I had this last night; car set to charge from 02:00 to 12:00 plugged in with about 30 miles of range left at about 18:30 last night, just woke up to a charging interrupted error and no increase in charge. House energy monitor confirms no activity through the night. Didn't notice what time the interrupt notification came. Good job I don't need it fully charged this morning.

Bill

OK, just as I brag about things getting better, I get a new (but better) failure mode last night. I noticed at 6:30am this morning that there was a "charging interrupted" message logged at 2:30am, with the SOC at 93%. In the past this has meant that charging was aborted, never to restart until I unplugged-replugged. However when I checked the SOC, it was at 100%, implying that sometime after 2:30am it decided to resume charging.

I figure I'll bring this up with BMW when I go in for the rumored KLE swap-out.

Buskraut said:

OK, just as I brag about things getting better, I get a new (but better) failure mode last night. I noticed at 6:30am this morning that there was a "charging interrupted" message logged at 2:30am, with the SOC at 93%. In the past this has meant that charging was aborted, never to restart until I unplugged-replugged. However when I checked the SOC, it was at 100%, implying that sometime after 2:30am it decided to resume charging.

I figure I'll bring this up with BMW when I go in for the rumored KLE swap-out.

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Speaking of which... has anyone heard anything about a KLE recall yet?

Anyone know what a 'LIM control unit' is ? That's what they replaced on my car last week in an attempt to fix this problem but unfortunately it didn't work and I've only had one night since where it charged without error.

Spoke to them again today and they want to try swapping the LIM again for a different version so that's currently on order from Germany.

noakey said:

Buskraut said:

OK, just as I brag about things getting better, I get a new (but better) failure mode last night. I noticed at 6:30am this morning that there was a "charging interrupted" message logged at 2:30am, with the SOC at 93%. In the past this has meant that charging was aborted, never to restart until I unplugged-replugged. However when I checked the SOC, it was at 100%, implying that sometime after 2:30am it decided to resume charging.

I figure I'll bring this up with BMW when I go in for the rumored KLE swap-out.

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Speaking of which... has anyone heard anything about a KLE recall yet?

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Here's what Tom Moloughney had to say about this yesterday:

Tom Moloughney posted in BMW i3
8:38pm Sep 23
I'm happy to report the new KLE & software update (07-505) has restored the charging rate back to where is was originally. It won't be long for the dealers to begin getting these new units in stock.

I've had my i3 just a few days. I've charged it several times with no problems. Last night was the first time I used the delayed overnight charging. Charging started on time and fully charged without any errors, resulting in a full charge. I have a Leviton 40a EVSE. Only issue, coming from a Prius Plug In, the delayed charging procedures are more complex than what I'm used to. The Prius requires only a "start" or "stop" time.

DAZ - please keep us posted on your charging. Do you have the REx model? It may be coincidence but it appeared to have issues more often when the battery was drained to below 40%. Yes, setting the departure time is strange but I think it tapers the charging. I set mine for 5 AM (end of low cost period) and turned off preconditioning.

For what it is worth, I am a new victim of this problem. Drove off with my new REx one week ago and like so many others have TOU-2 meter to take advantage of much reduced rates after midnight. With my previous Leaf, it was a simple matter of telling the vehicle to start after midnight and finish by 5AM. I have a level 2 AV wall charger left over from the Leaf purchase which has performed flawlessly for 3.5 years, but has no intrinsic timer.

With the REx, I stumbled through the poorly written Owner's Manual--whose instructions do not fully correspond to the actual menus on the Control Display--and set a departure time of 5:30AM, figuring from my prior experience with the Leaf that level 2 charging of a fully drained battery normally took less than 4 hours. After this, I set the charging for "low cost" with parameters of 12:30A start and 4:45A finish.

In the last 2 days I had two long commutes requiring brief use of the range extender and thus a nearly fully drained battery. With the above settings in place, I put the charging cable in at about 7PM. The i3 began charging immediately (at rates about 30% higher than my intention), then shut itself off about 1.5 hrs later, leaving a "charging error" notice in red on my iRemote app. This AM I awoke at 5AM for an early commute, only to discover a 1/3 charged battery. Fortunately I did not have to depart for about 1.5 hrs and I managed to get the battery up to 80% charge, but again at an unfavorable rate (could be worse; rates from 12-6P go up 300%). And it forced me to use the range extender late in the day.

What otherwise defies me is that the Control Display says I am set for Level 1 charging, when there is no such selection (nor, contrary to the manual, a choice to pick Level 2). I wonder if the battery software thinks it is Level 1 and of course then starts charging well before my low cost time zone, since to accomplish a full charge by 4:45A it WOULD have to start more than 8 hrs before. The manual makes reference to a choice to use Level 2, but this is not available on the Control Display.

The business has repeated itself again tonight as I type. This is ridiculous--truly sheds a bad light on BMW. As does the delayed availability of the Smartcharge app.

Amateurs. Perhaps they need to talk to the Leaf development team.

The level 2 menu is down a bit, you have to scroll the screen.

Yes, but when you shut the car off the last thing you see on the Goodbye screen is that charging is set for Level 1. Perhaps for economy of space there is no mention of Level 2, but it has me wondering if the car thinks Level 1 is the selected charging option (as a fault in the software), and given the 10-12+ hrs to charge a mostly drained battery, it would make sense that charging would start long before midnight despite the owner's intention to limit charging to the low-cost timeframe.

The vehicle auto senses the input voltage. There is a maximum current level adjustment you can make for both level 1 and level 2 inputs...if you want it to use the full output of the EVSE (or the most the vehicle can accept if you happen to have one that can supply more than 30/32A (depends on country how they rate it), you HAVE to have the charging rate set to maximum.

While that exit screen is visible, you can scroll and see the level 2 info - the screen is only so big, and can only display a little at a time in a font that is easy to read for the masses (no adjustment for that that I'm aware of).